Beijing takes on local-government mafias – Francesco Sisci

A new crisis is at work in China. Its fracture lines are barely apparent; still, they run deep, reaching the very structure of power of the Communist Party: the bureaucracy.

It was thanks to the efficient chain of command and control of the bureaucracy that the Tiananmen crisis was quickly brought under control. It was the same chain of command that worked miracles in neutralizing Falungong activists within the ranks of the party, by singling them out and expelling or re-converting them. But now this line of command and control is under strain, and this could in time bring real problems to Communist Party rule in China.